1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an electron emission display, and more particularly to an electron emission display in which a structure of an anode electrode is improved to increase light emission efficiency, a process for forming the anode electrode, and a method of fabricating the electron emission device.
2. Description of Related Art
An electron emission display is a self-light-emitting display using electrons emitted from an electron emission device having a plurality of electron emission elements.
Generally, electron emission elements can be classified into those using hot cathodes as an electron emission source and those using cold cathodes as the electron emission source.
Cold cathode electron emission elements include Field Emitter Array (FEA) elements, Surface Conduction Emitter (SCE) elements, Metal-Insulator-Metal (MIM) elements, and Metal-Insulator-Semiconductor (MIS) elements.
A typical electron emission display includes first and second substrates facing each other. Electron emission regions (or elements) are formed on (or over) the first substrate. The first and second substrates are sealed together at their peripheries using a sealing material such as frit, and the inner space between the substrates is exhausted to form a vacuum vessel (or chamber).
The electron emission display further includes driving electrodes formed on the first substrate to control the electron emission for each of the pixels. The electron emission display further includes phosphor layers (and black layers) formed on (or under) the second substrate, and an anode electrode formed on (or under) the second substrate to allow the electrons emitted from the electron emission regions formed on the first substrate to be effectively accelerated toward the phosphor layers. Accordingly, the electrons emitted from the electron emission regions collide with the phosphor layers to emit light and/or display an image.
Here, the anode electrode is formed of a metal such as aluminum. The anode electrode is disposed on (or under) the phosphor layers and the black layers to heighten the screen luminance by reflecting the visible light rays radiated from the phosphor layers to the first substrate toward the second substrate.
In order to form the anode electrode, a metal layer for the anode electrode is initially formed through a sputtering process or a vapor deposition process on an organic layer, which is an intermediate layer formed on the phosphor layers, and then the intermediate layer is fired.
However, the anode electrode may be damaged and cracked (e.g., to include hairline cracks) due to a high temperature generated during the firing process of the intermediate layer.
The cracks of the anode electrode deteriorate the reflection efficiency of the visible rays and thus the luminance and color reproduction ability of the electron emission display are lowered. Furthermore, the cracks of the anode electrode deteriorate the reliability of the anode electrode and thus the service life of the anode electrode (and/or the phosphor layers) is reduced. In addition, the cracks of the anode electrode may cause a short circuit that further damages the anode electrode.